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Siren

AdventDestiny

This is a project I've been trying to develop for almost half a year, it began as a character design for a 3d contest I participated in [didn't even make it as a finalist], and recently I decided to take it further, to develop a high-quality CG character designed to appear in a short horror film tentatively titled alLURE. My hope is that this discussion will not just serve to explore using Ziva FX to develop anatomy for a fantasy creature character, but also serve as a nice introductory tutorial for a novice not experienced in working with programs like Maya or Ziva...

So this is a very rough mesh I'm currently working on in ZBrush, representing the basic form of the Siren. The direction I'm going is to create an amphibious humanoid that is physically attractive, but at the same time has anatomical features that are clearly not human, concealing a much darker nature than her alluring appearance would suggest.

To start, I'm still experimenting with her feet, which I want to have a digitigrade quality like that of the legs of a dog or cat. I've been fiddling around with them for a while, so far unhappy with the appearance, and completely unsure of whether or not she could even stand on them, let alone walk or run on them. Any suggestions on how to approach her feet for eventual rigging in Ziva? While we're at it, is there anything else about the rest of her design that I should reconsider before trying to set up a skeletal and muscular system?

andy_vs

Hey Geoffrey

Great start, looking forward to watching this project develop; I think its important to remember when modeling a character for Ziva what the underlying musculature and bone structure will eventually look like.

You might benefit from looking at the mechanics of other bipeds that walk on their toes, i.e. walking birds such as ostriches or chickens.

It might help you to make the default pose for the arms more of T than an A pose. This will mean muscles like the delts will get into tricky poses easier because they'll have to deform less to get there (for example when the arms are raised above the head)

Do you have some reference you're working to? Some inspirational art or anything? Be good to see that too.

Cheers!
Andy

AdventDestiny

I took your advice and altered the pose of her arms, and I modified her feet so its a little more like the feet of an ostrich or velociraptor, while still possessing some human qualities as well.

I don't have a lot of references to show [a least not really any that would be safe for work, so to speak...] but I do have some sketches I've done recently, trying to explore her proportions and the potential anatomy of her skull:

As you can see with the sketch right above, I'm trying to design a skull structure that combines attributes of human, shark, and piranha anatomy. The most challenging aspect is trying to figure out how the shark's ability to project its jaws outside of its skull would work with a mostly humanoid face. By the looks of it, the region where her nose is would effectively have to recede into the skull somewhat to accommodate this.

As for the rest of her body, I figure that her skeletal and musculature will mostly be like that of a human's blended with the thinner spikiness of a fish's, and would therefore probably weigh significantly less than a human's.

andy_vs

Looks like you're getting a more fleshed out concept which will help you inform where the bones and muscles will get placed.

Looking forward to seeing your skeleton model and rig 🙂

AdventDestiny

Should have done this a while ago, but unfortunately I probably won't be able to continue with this project in the foreseeable future. Its not because of technical limitations or lack of experience [mostly], but simply because at this time I just can't afford subscribing to both Ziva FX and Maya, especially with no guarantee that I could accomplish what I want to achieve in an expedient manner. Don't get me wrong, I look at what can be done with Ziva FX, which is amazing, and wish I could have the chance to use it, but at the moment I don't have any experience in animation or programing, so I imagine that ultimately Ziva would be wasted on me.

That said, I'm not giving up on either this character concept or utilizing Ziva FX, I just have to rethink my plans. I do intend to utilize Ziva one day, once I've been able to secure financing and support for a more large scale projects, but to do that I need to create something to demonstrate the future potential of said projects. Right now I'm planning to commit to developing a virtual reality experience with Unreal Engine 4 and Oculus Rift, which the Siren character will be the main attraction.

Before I go, I did have a couple quick questions for the developers of Ziva FX; firstly, is it possible to use Ziva FX with Maya LT? And is there any future plans to try and adapt Ziva FX to work with Blender?

In terms of support for other platforms or environments, we can't speak to any specific integrations or milestones but I can say that we are working hard to remove barriers for adoption and make sure there are versions of Ziva that will help as many people as possible to do amazing character work.

Hope this was helpful - and hope to see you and your work in our forums in the future!

AdventDestiny

Thanks for the advice! I know about the Indie License, and the truth is that it wouldn't be that hard to save up for [or it'd be even easier to just take the non-commercial trial], it's just the issue of having to pay almost $200 a month to use it. I'm glad to hear that you guys are still working on getting Ziva FX onto other platforms, hope to see something come of it soon.